A system utilizing distributed sensing may include multiple disparate nodes moving independently with respect to each other. Data collected from such disparate nodes may be processed and coherently combined, which may then be used for various purposes such as navigation, communication, positioning, monitoring or the like. Distributed sensing may be utilized in various fields such as bi-/multi-static synthetic aperture radar imaging, radio frequency (RF) emitter geolocation, distributed RF beam-forming or the like.
An important requirement that enables distributed sensing is the determination of accurate positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) for each node, as well as relative PNT among the nodes. While satellite navigation systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) or the like may be utilized to provide PNT information for each node, the accuracy of such PNT information may be limited. These limitations may occur due to various factors, such as the intrinsic accuracy characteristics of the satellite navigation system that is utilized, visibility of the space vehicles from each particular node, signal strength, as well as various other factors.